The man alone facing the useless sea,
waiting for evening, waiting for morning.
The children play there, but the man wants
to have his own child, to watch him play.
Great clouds make a palace above the water,
each day collapsing and rising again, coloring
the faces of the children. Always there's the sea.

Morning strikes. The sunlight slips
across the damp beach, clinging to nets and stones.
The man steps into the hazy sun and walks
along the sea. He does not watch the wet
restless foam drifting across the shore.
At this hour the children still sleep
in the warmth of their beds, as a woman
still sleeps in hers, a woman who would make love
were she not alone. Slowly the man strips
naked as the woman and slips into the sea.

At night the sea vanishes into a great
emptiness under the stars. The children
in their glowing houses are falling asleep,
and someone is weeping. The man, tired of waiting,
raises his eyes to the stars, which hear nothing.
There is a woman at this hour who undresses a baby
and puts him to sleep. There is a woman in bed
who embraces a man. From a dark window
drifts a hoarse panting, and no one listens
but the man, who knows all the tedium of the sea.